The Day his Smile Disappeared Part 5: Guilty
by Elentari the Fair
Summary: Starting with this chapter and beyond, time is going to rush a little. So now, this chapter takes place two weeks later...next one may take place a few months later..depends on how I feel..please R&R..


It was over two weeks later, and there was still no sign of Adrian at the Police Department. Stottlemyer was growing concerned. He had some news to share with Adrian, involving Trudy, but he didn't want to go to his house and give him a reason not to come in more. He wanted Monk to get back to work. Soon. Stottlemyer knew that work was probably one of the better ways Adrian can cope with all this. Monk was a damn good cop, and the Captian didn't want to let him go, He also knew that Trudy was Adrian's whole world, so he was more patient than normal with him, but he knew that couldn't last forever.  
  
After his shift, he made that drive over to Adrian's apartment. It was around seven thirty in the evening. He didn't want to go, but at the least Adrian should know what had happend. He parked his car and rang the bell to his Apartment. No answer. He rang again; No answer. Worried, Stottlemyer tried to open the door, it was locked. He started banging on the door; "Monk! Are you home?" He looked into a window, and saw that a light was on in the living room, so he knew that he was home. He banged on the door again louder; "MONK! You get to this door!" He yelled loudly. Still no answer. Fearing the worst, Leland kicked the door open with his foot. It swung open with a loud "CRASH!" and he walked into the little hallway leading to the parlour.  
  
The first thing he noticed was the heavy smell of cleaning agents hitting his nose. He looked around the parlor, and saw that the wooden table was absolutly gleaming. Every available surface was shining. The vaccum cleaner was sitting the middle of the floor. "Monk!" He called "Where are you?"  
  
He ran into the bedroom, fully expecting to see him hanging from the celeing. There was no one in there. But the bed was made, the mirror was beautiful, the dresser and wardrobe were all shining. Some heavy duty cleaning had gone on. He went cautiously into the bathroom, expecting to see him floating in the bathtub. What he did see was Adrian, fully alive, kneeling on the floor scrubbing with all his might. The captian almost laughed with relief and went over to him, and knelt down beside his friend who didn't even notice him there. "Monk? Buddy?" He asked. No responce. He put a hand on his shoulder.  
  
Adrian jumped visibly at this sudden hand there. He turned around and asked "What are you doing here captian?"  
  
"You haven't been to work in over two weeks now. I haven't seen you, and was worried. I came over to see if things were alright."  
  
"Anything I can get for you Captain? Coffee?"  
  
"Sure, I can use a cup. Long day." They went into the kitchen, and Adrian went to put it on, when Stottlemyer asked him, taking a seat at the table.  
  
"What were you doing?"  
  
"Cleaning the bathroom. It's a mess." Adrian replied without turning around.  
  
" What have you been doing every day?" The captain asked, gently.  
  
"Cleaning." Adrian said plainly, handing him the cup of coffee putting two costers down in front of Stottlemyer and two in front of himself. Then sat down at the table in the seat oppisite him. It was a terrible tasting coffee. Stale. Obviously, Monk wasn't a huge fan of coffee his friend concluded. He did take a few gulps to be polite. While drinking this, the Captian took a long, critical look at his friend.  
  
Adrian looked horrible. All the scolding the Captian was going to do about Monk missing work completely left his mind, with one look at his face. He looked like he was eating little and sleeping less. He had purple circles under his eyes the size of sandwich baggies and he was paler than a sheet. His brown eyes were bloodshot. He had lost weight, and he reeked of polish, clorox, windex, and other various cleaning agents.  
  
"Any other particular reason as to why you came captian?" Monk asked after a minute of silence.  
  
"The captian took a long deep breath and stood up." Adrian made to stand too, but his friend pushed him back down gently and said; "No. You need to sit for this."  
  
Monk paled even more at this, if that was possible. "Is it about...Trudy?" He whispered.  
  
"Yeah. I'm afraid so." He said slowly. Thinking of every word before he said it.  
  
"Well? What happend? What happend to her?!" Adrian cried.  
  
"Car bomb." Sottlemyer said.  
  
"Car..car bomb?" Adrian searched his friends face for any sign of a lie.  
  
"Yes. It was detonated when Trudy opened the door to get into the car. The car had exploded in the parking garage near the convience store over on Seventh. Looks like she was running an errand." He replied.  
  
"Who could have done this to Trudy? My Trudy?!" Adrian asked desperately jumping to his feet.  
  
"Did she have any enemies? Anyone that didn't like her?"  
  
"No one..She was friends with everyone! NO ONE didn't like her!" Monk cried aloud. Grabbing the captian by the shoulders, he asked "Who did it?! Who killed her?!"  
  
"We don't know. We found fragments of the bomb in the car. All finger print free. The car was totaly destroyed. We couldn't find any fingerprints in the car that weren't hers. We are working on it! Don't lose hope! We will catch them."  
  
"Who could have done this?" Monk asked again more to himself. He suddenly let go of his shoulders, his knees buckled from under him, and he and collapsed into his chair moaning. Stottlemyer lept over to him and asked. "What is it?!"  
  
"Captian...." Monk said slowly "We switched cars for the day! We switched them! That bomb was ment for me! Not her..."  
  
"Why did you switch cars?" Stottlemyer asked him, in total shock.  
  
"Because hers had a b-b-b-broken muffler." Adrian started, tears trinkling down the sides of his cheeks "I-I figured since the repair shop is r-r-right near the St-st-station, which is closer to the house. I would take her car, and after w-w-w-work, I could drop it off at the shop, then walk home. She w-w-w-works farther away, so I didn't want her to walk all that way. So...so...so... we switched them...Captian...it's my fault." He buried his face into his hands.."All my fault..."  
  
"No..you couldn't have known. It wasn't your fault" Stottlemyer replied kneeling down beside him. "It's not your fault..." Stottlemyer kept repeating to him..."It's not your fault."  
  
"It is..it is my fault..." Monk kept replying not looking at him. He got up suddenly and grabbed a bottle of Pledge wood polish. He headed for the door and started cleaning it. Luckily Stottlemyer didn't kick it so hard, so it wasn't broken. Just "dirty."  
  
His friend went over to the door, and grabbed the bottle of polish away. "It's not your fault buddy. "It's not.."  
  
Adrian got slowly to his feet after about two minues of silence, and gestured towards the door. "Please...I would like to be alone..." He said softly. Goodnight Captain. He put the bottle down and looked at the clock on the oppisite wall. He knew that the time was excactly correct because that's the way Adrian kept the time. He was startled to learn that it was already almost nine! He had to get home or his wife would yell at him.

"Alright buddy. But as an order from your Captain. Take it easy on the cleaning. Eat something while you're at it. You look like you're gonna pass out at any moment, not just from hunger. Your apartment smells like twenty bottles of Pledge exploded. I'm gonna be sure to tell you as soon as something comes up. Try to get out a little too...you're paler than a ghost...and for God's sakes get some sleep! Remember though...It's not your fault..." Stottlemyer turned and left, closing the door behind him.  
  
The Captain drove quickly home. He ran inside and saw his wife angrily staring at him..."Where were you? Staying late at work again?! Why didn't you call?! I was so worried. The children are already in bed!"  
  
"Please..don't start..I just had a rough few hours with Monk. I stopped at his house on the way home after work."  
  
"Ohhh...that poor man. How is he?" She asked losing all her anger demeanor in an instant. She went to the microwave from where she came and stuck a plate of food in for her husband and turned it on.  
  
"Miserable. He is thinner than a pipe cleaner and paler than a ghost. And the Stench! My God!"  
  
"You mean he's not washing?!" She asked.  
  
"No..he washes too much. Even for him. He is saturated of polish and cleaners. Every spot of his house is absolutly spotless...it's scary. Sad too." He added; "Considering the nature of my visit."  
  
"Don't tell me Leland, that you gave that man more bad news." She started, bringing him back his dinner of organic articokes with a veggie burger.  
  
"I had to..today I found out, that it was a car bomb that killed her." He said reaching for a fork and napkin, and started to eat. For once, he didn't complain about having no meat for dinner. He wouldn't have complained even if she had served him maggots and liver. He didn't even know what he was consuming.  
  
"Car bomb!" She yelled then thought of her children sleeping right above them and quietly asked again; "Car bomb?"  
  
"Yeah...I had to spare him the details, since I don't know them all myself yet. Apparantly, it was detonated when she opened the door after a visit to the convience store, someone must have slipped it when she was in there. Totally destroyed the car."  
  
"And how did he take it?" She asked slowly.  
  
"Terribly. I guess he and Trudy had switched cars for the day, as hers had a muffler problem. He was going to get it fixed. He thinks that the car bomb was ment for him. And after thinking about it, I think he may be right." He finished his dinner and handed the plate to his wife and she put them into the sink.  
  
"Oh no...no no no..." she said with her back turned. Incredibly, he could hear her crying softly. He went over to her and put his arms around her, held her close. "Don't cry..please don't cry.."  
  
"It's just so sad...imagine what I would do without you...and that poor man, sitting in his house alone...thinking about it...how her life could have been spared...I can't help it...it's too horrible." She turned around and hugged him tightly. Then she touched his arm gently and whispered..."Come to bed with to bed Leland..."  
  
So they went to bed together, and it was good...and they both fell asleep holding each other in their arms.  
Meanwhile, on the other side of town, Adrian Monk was sitting in a chair staring out into space. Thinking..."How...how could this have happend? It was my car...that bomb was ment for me..not her...never her...Why did it have to be her? Why couldn't it have been me?! Why couldn't I have been the one in that car?!"  
  
He got up slowly to get to the kitchen. He wanted to follow his Captians orders...eat something. Take his mind of things a little. He went to the fridge to get something. There wasn't anything in there he could make. Not even sandwich fixings.  
  
He shut the fridge and went into his room. He really didn't care about eating anyway. He slowly changed into his Pajamas. He looked at his bed. He couldn't sleep. He didn't deserve sleep. Adrian felt like a murderer. He felt dirty and disgusting. He killed his wife. He had her blood on his hands. How could he possibly go on, knowing that this could have prevented! HE could have died instead! An innocent life could have been spared. He had plenty of enemies..people willing to kill him for throwing their relatives in prision. His wife was INNOCENT! He felt the anger surge through him, and made his blood boil.  
  
Angry tears came to his eyes and he wiped them away impatiantly. He couldn't tell anyone that his wifes death had been his fault! "ALL MY FAULT!!!" He yelled. He kicked a chair...hard. He hardly felt it as it hit the floor. He ran and threw around the pillows off his couch around the room. He brought his hands down in a blind rage onto his table, knocking things over. He went over to the wall, and kept punching it...over and over..letting his rage out onto it. He stormed back into the parlor and kicked over his stereo speaker. He stopped at the sound of breaking glass. He looked down and saw it a picture had fallen onto the floor from on top of the speaker. He picked it up and turned it around. It was a picture of Trudy. Her blond hair all around her face. Blue eyes open and sparkled with life and vigour. All covered in broken glass. Just like his heart.

He went into the kitchen and threw away all the pieces of broken glass into the trash. Luckily, the photo wasn't ripped. Thank God for small favors, he thought sarcastically. Soon he would get more glass to cover it back up again, but for now, this would do. He went with it into his bedroom and set it down very gently on the nightstand near his bed. Adrian crawled into bed and shut the lights off. The moonlight hit the photo and he could see her eyes. _Trudys_ eyes. Looking at him. He felt wracked with guilt. "I'm so sorry Trudy" He whispered in the dark. "I wish I could die, if that ment you could be here. You didn't deserve this....forgive me...I'm sorry..."


End file.
